


Teach me how to kiss (like real mortals do)

by cryogenia



Series: Teach me how to kiss [1]
Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Hair Brushing, M/M, Sensuality, Thanatos isn't sure what he wants, Touch-Starved, Virgin Thanatos (Hades Video Game), also Thanatos has his long hair, because why not, but he definitely doesn't want Zagreus to feel like an experiment, fortunately Achilles is a very good mentor, honestly for both of them, it's all very self indulgent, or is that pre-reuniting Patrochilles, pre-relationship MegZagThan, pre-relationship Patrochilles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27737755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryogenia/pseuds/cryogenia
Summary: Thanatos is Death Incarnate, and so he used to think he had no interest in "creating life". Now that they are grown, he's starting to reconsider that around Zagreus. He's nervous though - what if he doesn't actually care for touch?  Thanatos may not be sure what he wants, but he definitely doesn't want Zagreus to feel like an experiment.And well, Zag trusts Achilles in all things.Thanatos chooses to trust Achilles, too.
Relationships: Achilles/Thanatos
Series: Teach me how to kiss [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123628
Comments: 78
Kudos: 345
Collections: Hades Kink Meme





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> From the Hades kink meme on Dreamwidth, which has ignited a fire in my soul. It's 2020, and we all deserve a little unabashed self indulgence.

It is halfway through the second candle of his shift when he notices something is different than usual, though what exactly, Achilles cannot yet say. The rhythm of the House has changed these past weeks - what passes for weeks, down here where gracious Helios does not mark day - but his Lord’s hall is ever known to him. Achilles knows the footfalls and the way of all who pass his vantage point. He selected it purposefully, that he may watch both the approach to his Lord’s desk and the entrance to the Lord’s chambers.

It’s the ambient sound, he decides. It’s duller. The chatter in the Hall ebbs and flows throughout each shift but the echoes should be the same. Usually a change in the quality of noise means Zagreus, either returning from his latest attempt or installing yet another rug. Achilles has not seen the Contractor’s work force though, nor does he hear rapid, sizzling footfalls. Dusa is at the far edge of the display room, humming. The hourglass candle behind him continues its low crackle.

He realizes, almost too late, that the dampening is coming from above. 

There is no need for footfalls when one’s feet do not touch the firmament.

Typically, Lord Thanatos keeps to his station, a dim balcony overlooking the great river Styx. It had once been a fairly depressing nook though there’s a kline there recently, as well as a darling inlaid table. Achilles can still count on one hand the number of times he’s seen the god move to use any of it. The god of death appears where he wishes and vanishes when he’s done, quite utilitarian. 

Apparently, this is not one of those times.

Thanatos descends like a great bird circling its prey, almost menacingly purposeful. Yet his bare feet are pointed down and respectfully away. When he alights just above the ground, he barely makes a sound.

Achilles bows his head.

“Greetings, O Death.”

Thanatos acknowledges with the faintest inclination of his head. Everything about his features is severe: his sharp jaw, his wolf-like eyes. A crop of hair so ruthlessly cut it seems to beg for mercy. Every inch of Death is precise, from the cut of his figure to the shape of his blades.

He looks...tired.

“I would speak with you, shade,” the god demands. Pauses. “Achilles.” 

A good warrior never betrays their own surprise. Achilles hopes his features remain open while he processes one of his fellow house servants greeting him by  _ name _ .

“Of course,” Achilles says. “What does my Lord require?” That should spur Death to speak to him as an equal. 

Thanatos’s fingers tighten almost imperceptibly on his scythe. The lines beneath his eyes seem to deepen as he tips his head away.

“I am given to understand Zagreus speaks with you.”

Ah. 

So this is going to be Zagreus’s fault after all. 

“Well, yes?” Achilles can’t quite help the soft chuckle. “I am his tutor.” 

Thanatos makes a disgruntled sound. 

“That’s not what I meant.”

The god’s lips twist like he’s tasted a bitter melon. 

“I was referring to matters of...a more personal nature,” Thanatos says.

“I see.” 

Achilles doesn’t see actually, but this is an old trick. Patroclus once taught him that sometimes the greatest weapon a warrior can have is nothing more than patience. He lets the silence fester, offering nothing more, and watches as Death himself crumbles.

“I heard you advised Zagreus to approach me. About. The nature of our relationship.” Thanatos bites out each sentence like it pains him. 

Achilles, for his part, frowns.

“Those matters are private,” he says with some heat. He doesn’t particularly care if Thanatos takes offense. Death can certainly kill him, but he’ll be back to his post in a matter of minutes. He would rather that than betray Zagreus’s confidence.

“Who told you this? Dusa? I will speak with her.” 

Achilles appreciates the servants’ gossip - it helps him to know what mood the Lord may arrive in - but sometimes there are those who get carried away. Even in his father’s House, even with his punishment of chambers without doors, surely Zagreus deserves  _ some _ space. 

Especially from one who seems to adore him.

Thanatos looks as startled as if Achilles had rapped his knuckles. His pretty eyes are wide as saucers.

“No!” the god says. “It was an accident on my part. I had just come in -- and Lord Hades had asked for an audience and -- well. The sound carries up in the ceiling. I left as soon as I heard.”

Thanatos’s thumb rubs again along his scythe. It’s like a babe stroking a favored fur. 

“I just. It means you  _ know _ , then.”

There’s a stubborn inflection to his words despite how lifeless he overall sounds. Achilles has long wondered how much a god inherits from their domain and how much is merely their attempt to live up to it. At a distance, Achilles had always thought Thanatos’s fingers were purplish to mystically match the livid dead. Up close, he can see the nails are lacquered, and chipped.

“You know how it is between us,” Thanatos says. 

His golden eyes are so desperate. And  _ young _ , despite the lines in his face.

“Aye, my Lord. I know his side of it, at least.” Achilles says gently. 

He wets his lips. 

“Did you need someone to hear yours?”

“I don’t know if I have ‘a side’,” Thanatos mutters. “It’s not about ‘sides’. But I don’t know how I ought to respond.”

“He’s asked you, then?” 

Achilles hopes his face is still as neutral as he once trained it to be. Truthfully, he wants to grin from ear to ear. 

It seems the question makes Death smile too. Thanatos nods and the motion is curt, but there’s a little curl at the edge of his lips.

“Yes. I think. He said we can ‘take our time’. Like it hasn’t been an aeon already.  _ He’s _ the one who made things difficult.”

Oh, and that exasperation is all too familiar. Achilles does smile now, too charmed by having a fellow compatriot. To know willful Zagreus is to adore him, and also to occasionally scream into the abyss.

“Do you love him, then?” Achilles asks softly. “Because I think there is the only answer you need.”

“That isn’t the problem!” Thanatos snaps, with a heat Achilles has never heard him use before. “It’s what he  _ wants _ from it.”

Thanatos’s skin is normally dark, but in a queasy, ashen shade - like a myrmidon might look if they were bleeding out. Right now, his cheeks are tinged faintly with golden. It makes him seem almost human in his embarrassment. 

“I am  _ Death _ ,” Thanatos says. “I do not have the same urges mortals do. I never thought I’d be interested in...creating life.”

That is...admittedly not what Achilles expected.

“You think Zagreus wants to have a  _ child _ ?”

Perhaps not impossible, given the ways of gods, but honestly,  _ what in creation _ ? 

Thanatos seems caught flat-footed too. He bobs in the air like it’s his way of stumbling.

“No, that came out wrong,” the god says. His overall stance is as rigid as ever, but the way he tilts his head gives the impression he’s retreating under his hood. “All I meant is...I know he lays with Megaera.”

“Aye,” Achilles says carefully. “Everyone in the House does by this point, I’d wager.”

He’s not entirely certain how the god will react, but apparently not with jealousy. The jab brings a rare, tiny laugh out of Thanatos. 

“I know. You would think he could bribe the House Contractor for some doors.” Thanatos shakes his head. “He’s undermined his father’s authority on every other occasion.”

_ Not  _ every _ occasion _ , Achilles thinks, but does not say. He’s flattered enough by the Prince’s grandiose promise to ‘help’ him, even though Achilles knows it’s expressly impossible.

It’s not his place to hope for things he never deserved in the first place.

“So you are thinking about Zagreus and Megaera,” Achilles says, mostly to head off the oncoming thoughts. At least this is a unique distraction. “And you aren’t sure if you would want the same.”

Thanatos’s shoulders relax into a rounded slump.

“Exactly,” Thanatos sighs. “I am not --  _ we  _ are not mortals with appetites like you. We are not all required, nor given, to partake.”

Oh poor, sweet thing. For all his strength, he seems so powerless.  _ As are we all, in the face of Aphrodite’s might _ , Achilles thinks.

Achilles catches the god’s embarrassed gaze and holds it. 

“Listen to me,” Achilles says. “He  _ cares _ for you, my Lord. What form that takes is up to you. But you must know that he would not forsake you just because you will not lay with him.”

“That’s not it either!”

The air in the hall takes on a violent, greenish quality, like the horizon before a tempest. Achilles waits for the bell that marks Thanatos leaving, but to the god’s credit, its toll never come. The haze clears a heartsbreath later, leaving the god behind, staring somewhere down and away. 

“It’s not that I am certain I don’t want him.” 

Thanatos’s mouth twists around the unpalatable sentence.

“Sorry. Words are...not my strongest suit.”

Achilles nods. “Take your time.”

Thanatos tries again. 

“That is to say. I have no reference at all if it is something I want. If I  _ knew _ , then this would be easy.”

And oh, how he says that with all the naïve certainty of youth. There are those who depict Death on vases as an old man, bearded and frail. Right now, only a fool would see anything but the freshest-faced recruit, even though surely Death has existed as long life itself.

Achilles nods again, careful to keep a calm, non-judgmental face.

“I’m not certain any love is ever ‘easy’,” he says, thinking of Dusa. He knows what became of her conversation with Zagreus, more or less. “Doubtless those who have no interest have their own complications.”

“But at least I would  _ know _ ,” Thanatos insists. His eyes are like raw coals. “Sometimes, of late, I wonder. With him.”

All that rawness. That bare longing. It hits Achilles between the breast, deep in the memory where his heart beats.

That first time with Patroclus, in a thread-bare tent, underneath an ocean of stars.

“Go to him, then,” Achilles says softly. “You know how he is. He would never turn you away.”

“But I  _ might _ ,” Death says. His voice is as bleak as the grave. “What if I came to him, and I  _ didn’t _ like it? I don’t want to do that to him.”

Achilles grips his own spear tighter.

“Do you think so little of him, that he would hate you for telling him no? Nyx taught him better than that.  _ I  _ taught him better than that.” 

“No!” Thanatos hisses, just as offended. “I would think badly of  _ myself _ !”

He makes that noise again, the little ‘tsch’ between a hiss and a click.

“You know what he’s like. He’ll worry for me. That I was pushing myself. Or...competing with Meg, or some other nonsense.”

“And are you?” 

“Of course not,” Thanatos insists. “I just.”

The god of Death pushes his bangs back, as though the motion can somehow coax the words out.

“I want to know,” Thanatos says. “I...I want to try it with someone who shares my tastes. I already tried discussing it with Megaera. I know we have a common interest, but I did not care for what she likes. At all. But I look at others and...sometimes, the interest burns.”

His eyes catch on Achilles’s face and linger. The picture comes together like clay on a wheel: wobbling, then all of a sudden snaps into shape. 

“You mean me,” Achilles says. It’s a good thing he no longer needs air. There’s barely any to support his breath. 

Distantly, he thinks he can hear the three Fates laughing.

“If it is not disagreeable,” Thanatos confirms. “You are...pleasing, when I look at you. And you care for him.”

Somehow, Achilles thinks faintly through the shock, the second part seems the most important.

“O Death, I’m flattered,” he begins. He’s not sure where he means it to end. It’s all so sudden, that someone’s even said his  _ name _ . 

Someone other than Zagreus, who has only ever given him everything he can.

He must have let the surprise show on his features though, or perhaps he’s simply let the silence sit too long. Even without the bell, Achilles can see Thanatos is gathering himself to flee.

“Forget it,” the god hisses, pulling his scythe in front of him. His bronze flush has extended all the way down to his chest. “Forget I said any of it. If you tell  _ anyone _ -”

“Hold, my Lord!” Achilles says. 

He swallows hard.

“I did not say no.”

Thanatos looks like a wounded animal, head down, hackles up. Furious and proud, but at the core of it, a tiny kernel of hope. 

Maybe that’s what wins him over, in the end. Or maybe it’s just the memory: that same feeling, writ across his own face. Patroclus’s hands. Those strong fingers brushing his hair out from his face, telling him it was going to be okay.

Achilles does not cup Death’s face between his hands, but it is a close thing.

“You know that it would be my wish you could be this open with him as well. You’re certain you cannot be persuaded?”   


Thanatos squeezes his scythe so tight his gauntlet creaks. He nods his head.

“Then perhaps, Fates willing, we can work something out.” 

He offers the god a wry grin. 

“I only fear I may be a poor substitute for what you truly need.”

For a long moment, Thanatos simply looks at him with those eerie eyes. 

“And you would know about that.” Said as a statement, not as a question. 

For the first time, Achilles wonders how many know about the trade he made. About what it cost him, simply so he could continue running away. 

Achilles swallows hard. 

“It seems I do. We may understand each other yet.”

Now that the tension has passed, Thanatos begins to unfurl bit by bit. He fusses with his bracer, straightens his pauldron in the mirror over Achilles’ shoulder. Achilles watches him put on his neutral expression like a concubine paints their lip with stain. 

“When are you free from your shift?” Thanatos asks.

Achilles glances across the hall at the wall sconce. It’s the only way anyone can tell time: bracers of candles set to burn to ash. 

“At the end of the third candle,” Achilles says. 

“I will see you in your chambers then,” Death promises, and vanishes.

Achilles, alone with his thoughts, tries not to think about what might be coming, or a long-ago tent outside on the green.


	2. Chapter 2

True to his word, Achilles holds fast until just after the start of the red, fourth candle before leaving his post. No one has come to replace him (as always) and his Lord is still seated at his desk, muttering as ever about the incompetence of his ‘wretches’. Their arrangement has ever been unusual for a ‘guard’, and only serves to prove Achilles's permanent suspicion: that his primary value to the Lord is redirecting the energy of the Prince, who had grown from an “obedient” youth into an “aimless, unruly” adult. 

In truth, the first time Achilles had met Prince Zagreus, the man had chattered happily for a solid hour, achingly polite, introducing him to everyone he could think to meet. Upon their first spar, he had smiled through every single hit. Zagreus isn’t a willful lad, just a deeply lonely one. In another life he’d have been a blessing to any phalanx that took him. He never gives in, and he never gives up. When Achilles had needed to rebuff the man’s affections - too afraid he might be taking advantage - Zagreus had instead vowed to help  _ him _ . To help him back to Patroclus, regardless of how impossible that might be. Zagreus may run roughshod over everything his father holds sacred, but his heart is always in the right place. 

And here Achilles is, about to lay hands on one of Zagreus’s beloved. He wonders if that should make a difference to Zagreus, or if he would simply be hurt that Achilles didn’t trust him the same way.

Achilles drifts quietly through the great hall and into the lounge, heading for his chambers. The House does not follow the rules of mortal logic, but its Lord is fierce with his own. When Achilles enters the servant’s area, through the passage at the far side of the kitchen, the chambers rearrange to meet his needs. No matter what the hallway looks like, his quarters are always the second door at the second left. He wonders sometimes if the pattern is the same for everyone or if it would be different were he accompanied by friends. Achilles has never had friends in his chambers, and so he continues to muse.

Tonight’s door is jewel encrusted with an adornment in the shape of a well carved bull. He hopes that is at least a decent omen. Achilles slips inside and contemplates if there’s anything he ought to clean or arrange.

His chambers are small but that’s how he prefers it - less to navigate, even less to maintain. The room is lit by braziers in low troughs about the edges, furnished only with his resting couch, an accompanying table, a few small chests, and a single swept-back chair. Once, in life, he might have spurned the simple curved wood and demanded a proper high-backed throne. Too late did he learn the value of staying humble. 

Achilles pours himself a glass of wine from the vessel waiting on the table. Some meal is always waiting for him when he gets off work, yet he’s never seen what spirit delivers it. Food itself is never a necessity, which is a lucky thing. Underworld cuisine bears only a passing resemblance to nourishment. 

He kicks his wine back and drains the cup instead. Pours again, and takes most of the glass in two swallows. There is always sure to be more.

As he drinks, he starts going through the motions of relaxation. He unpins his top cloak and undoes his bronze chest piece, his bracers. Everything winds up beside him on the chair. He wonders if he ought to tidy the couch as well. His resting couch is long and narrow, with a soft top unlike anything he’d ever seen in life. It’s covered with a strange, lush fabric so carefully woven it feels like fur. The padding inside is like sleeping on clouds. So great is the wealth of the unseen one that even his servants have beds that could make a king weep.

In the campaign field, even as a commander, Achilles had always slept on skins and hay; his only pillow, Patroclus’s breast. He would trade every fine thing in this House for that luxury again.

Achilles is still contemplating getting out the night linens when a sharp knock rings through the chamber. He pushes the rest of his wine aside. 

“A moment, please!” Achilles shouts, fumbling with the straps on his greaves. Had he been so uncouth as to forget his place? Here he sits, still half in armor, when a  _ god _ is coming for him. Achilles finishes ripping off his leg pieces and scoops them up with the rest of his panoply. He dumps it all shamefully in a jumble inside the arms chest. 

His spear at least is easy enough to mount into its brace on the wall, as if he still has pride to put on display.

The knock comes again.

“My apologies,” Achilles calls out as he rushes to the door. “I confess, the time got away from me.”

He pulls the door open. 

He’s expecting Master Death, but instead he finds a stranger: a stunning creature with long, gently shining hair stands there in the hallway. They are clad in one of the finest garments Achilles has ever seen: a linen so sheer it might bare skin if it weren’t dyed a deep, kingly purple. For a moment, that rich color is the only thing he sees, molded over a shapely chest.

Then he recognizes that gold belt cinched tight around their waist, and more importantly, its broad, stylized skull buckle.

“My Lord Thanatos,” Achilles says in one startled breath. It feels like having the wind punched out of him. 

Thanatos seems unsure what to make of him as well. His expression is as muted as always but his golden eyes flicker all over Achilles's face. 

Achilles realizes acutely what he must look like, barely dressed with wine smudges on his lips.

Thanatos arches one silver brow, every inch the imposing deity.

“Are you going to invite me in?” Thanatos asks. 

“Of course.”

Achilles stumbles only a little as he makes way for the god to enter. Instinct brings him over to the table. Living or dead, there’s a  _ guest _ to attend to.

“Would you care for bread and wine?”

Gods, he hopes there’s actually bread. He hadn’t inspected anything on the meal tray aside from wine. For that matter, he hopes he has a second cup.

Thankfully, Thanatos waves him away. 

“As I said, we gods do not have the same needs that you mortals do.”

Achilles pauses. It’s considered rude to ask questions before dining, but since Thanatos is uninterested…

“Yet the gods are known for their nectar?”

Thanatos inclines his head.

“‘Need’ is very different from ‘desire’.” 

Achilles draws a breath in deep.

“And what do  _ you _ desire, O Death?” he says.

They each stand there a long moment, watching each other across the room. Thanatos is barely hovering, his bare feet almost brushing the ground. Now that he’s entered he seems to be deflating. Thanatos seems ill-at-ease without his scythe or pauldrons to brandish. He keeps shifting one leg behind the other as though there’s any meaning to stance when doesn’t even brace against the ground. Achilles wonders if Death too sometimes sleeps with armor on.

“...you know why I’m here,” Thanatos says eventually. He frowns. “Don’t mock me, shade.” 

And then he stops, apparently uncertain what to do next. His broad mouth closes -- opens -- closes again, and he’s silent.

The long tresses do not make Thanatos any less imposing, Achilles decides, but they do grant a certain contrast to his face. Instead of the cloak, he hides behind a curtain of hair. 

Suddenly, everything feels simpler.

“Aye, I know why you’re here,” Achilles says. 

He takes the first of several steps closer. 

“And I’m not here to attack you, or throw you over without warning. We can talk first, if that’s easier.”

“About?” 

Thanatos huffs. Achilles takes a few more steps. 

“Your new look, for example. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

Thanatos fidgets with a gold bracelet at his wrist, as if he himself has just remembered that he has an incarnation. He’s wearing hardly any of his customary adornments, merely his belt and a few simple bracelets. Achilles can’t say he’s ever seen the god without his winged clasp or neck piece, to say nothing of the rippling hair.

“Pat used to say my curls were a terror, but apparently your hair grows even faster,” Achilles notes with a grin. 

That drags a little, proud smile to the surface.

“I am not limited by the rules you mortals follow,” Thanatos says. “I used to wear it like this all the time.”

A slight bronze flush blossoms in his cheeks.

“Zagreus liked it.”

Oh, precious heart. That fancy hair. The outlandishly expensive garment. Achilles finds himself aching again. Thanatos is old as starlight, older than bones, and yet Achilles remembers being this age.

“You don’t have to change yourself to fit Zagreus, my Lord,” Achilles says. “He adores  _ you _ .” 

Thanatos glares like he doesn’t need his scythe to kill.

“I  _ want _ him to like it,” the god insists stubbornly and oh, Achilles recognizes that flavor of growl. He remembers the obsession he’d had with tying his own chitons higher, tighter; the power he’d felt that first time Patroclus’s gaze  _ crawled _ up his legs.

“And he will,” Achilles promises. “You are stunning in any form.”

He’s near enough now he can see Thanatos’s breath catch. He offers a careful, mild smile. This close, he can see Nyx’s family resemblance. Hypnos has curly hair like a prize sheep; gracious Night’s spins out like wings of gossamer. Thanatos is a mixture of both. His silver hair spills out in sleek waves that twist all the way to his waist. His hair is not as tightly coiled as Hypnos’s, though it might be just as dense. A man’s hands could easily get lost in it.

He wonders how anyone ever believed the lie that Zagreus sprang from Nyx when her sons’ beauty is so striking, and so strikingly, obviously their own.

Thanatos drifts an inch higher from the ground, spinning that bracelet around and around at his wrist.

“...thank you,” he says awkwardly. “It gets in the way too much for work, but. Sometimes, I miss it.”

Achilles nods. He’s increasingly aware he knows this dance, in spirit if not degree. He himself had been so cocksure when he left for war, so young he’d not yet had time to work himself out. He’d grown into a man on the battlefield, and battle had been the only language he spoke. He’d thrown himself at Patroclus with all the ferocity of a warrior, because strength was the only thing he knew -- and been completely and lovingly disarmed. 

Mortal lives mean nothing to the golden ones, and yet Achilles wonders how young Thanatos had been when he first went out into the world. A young adult? A  _ child _ ? How long has his only touch been the formless, limitless souls of the dying?

Achilles spreads his hands out, low and non-threatening.

“Come here,” he says, gesturing to the low couch. “Let me start by combing out your hair.”

The offer throws Death enough he physically bounces, shooting up halfway to the ceiling and then lowering again.

“Why would you do that?” Thanatos asks. 

_ Because you look like you’re about to shift out of your own skin _ , Achilles thinks but does not say. It would not help the god feel any more comfortable.

“Because it’s calming,” he offers instead. “For both parties. Pat does it for me.”

Thanatos gives him an adorably confused look and Achilles winces. Did it, Pat  _ used _ to do it, blast everything to the deepest depths. For all of this unknowable time, Pat refuses to be relegated to memory.

He puts that feeling in a chest with all the others and does his best to lock them all away.

“Anyway, it feels good,” Achilles continues. “And you can stop doing it any time you please. You can stop  _ anything _ any time you please.”

Not that he has any fear of that from Zagreus. The lad - whom his father calls ‘a disgrace’, who has died a hundred times and will come back a thousand more - is unfailingly loyal to those who deserve it. Achilles has no doubt if he - or anyone - causes Thanatos pain, Zagreus will be right there to politely drive him into the ground.

Thanatos is also staring at him, somewhere between annoyed and amused.

“You do realize, I am  _ the literal incarnation of Death _ ,” the god says. “No one is doing anything to me without my say.”

His eyes flick briefly and pointedly away.

“Not ever again,” he mutters.

Thanatos’s voice is so faint, Achilles isn’t certain if he was meant to hear. He chooses to wait. When Thanatos looks up again, his eyes bore into Achilles's head so hard he’s surprised the Styx doesn’t take him.

“Noted,” Achilles says. “So if it pleases you, I would like for you to sit on the kline.”

Thanatos studies his face for a long moment, but he seems to find what he is looking for. He nods at last and drifts toward the resting couch. 

“Give me just a second,” Achilles says. “I will find something suitable.”

Curse his inability to care for anything but arms, though. He has to dig through two chests before he finds the kit he is searching for. The carved wooden comb on its own is a marvel, but the hair brush is something he couldn’t have bought in two lifetimes. Someone had carved an oak paddle with delicate designs and then wove in stiff bristles from what looks like a wild boar. The Lord of the House had gifted these to him as a regular part and parcel of his role. As though the brush alone weren’t worth a princess’s dowry. 

_ Brush _ , Achilles decides, thinking about what it feels like. He hasn’t felt the need to groom himself lately - not much purpose, when Zagreus is not around to wrestle him sweaty - but he remembers what it’s like to feel those bristles tickling against his scalp. 

Thanatos is waiting for him at the middle of the low couch. He’s sitting right on the edge like a hummingbird alight, so lightly tethered that the cushion hardly gives under his weight.

Achilles circles around to the other side of the backless kline and eases himself onto it one knee at a time. He takes a position at Thanatos’s back and a little to the god’s left, one leg folded to keep some polite distance, the other splayed out to the side.

Thanatos lifts momentarily, like Hypnos - he’s still nominally seated, but floating in the air. 

“Sorry,” the god mumbles. He drops down again, perhaps harder this time. Achilles feels it when the couch dips.

“That’s it,” Achilles says, sure as he would soothe a stallion. 

He holds the brush out low and to the side where Thanatos can see it, but it’s his fingers he leads with first. Achilles draws his free hand to pet over the god’s head in slow, gentle motions. Patroclus’s hair was thick and coiled and he rarely trusted Achilles's boorish touch with his vanity. He’d liked to laugh at Achilles for his shockingly woeful braiding and ask him instead to focus on his shave, “because surely blades are your specialty”. Achilles remembers more what Pat’s hands felt like in his own hair. Those broad nails grazing over his scalp. He wants to give Thanatos that, those nice bone-deep shivers.

It seems he won’t have to work hard at all. Thanatos stiffens against that first, foreign touch and then lets go of all his tension at once. His muscles relax so violently he might as well have gone limp. He rolls his neck and shoulders forward over and over to lean into the touch, swaying like a sailor navigating a high sea. Achilles cards his fingers through that gorgeous, silky hair and lets the god lean into it. Thanatos’s thin lips part and he draws a long breath, eyes half shut.

All from a few gentle pets to his head.

“Is this all right?” Achilles asks. He does not ask, has anyone else ever touched Thanatos this way. The way he’s reacting is the whole of the answer; the way he leans simply begging for more. Achilles curls two fingers around the edge of the god’s hair and gathers the curtain back, exposing the tiniest sliver of neck. Thanatos stretches like a flower seeking sun, shuddering when Achilles brushes two knuckles against his soft skin.

How long has it been since Death had even this much laid bare?

Achilles stays like that for a few breaths, letting Thanatos get used to the sensation of someone touching his neck, before he shifts to the brush that he’d promised. He starts at the crest of the god’s head and works it carefully down. If he’d thought Thanatos responsive before, he was woefully unprepared for the trembling this gives him. The way Thanatos curls his toes against the floor with each stroke.

Gods, the  _ power _ in this. Would that he could turn back time and experience it again for the first time himself. That he could see it through Pat’s eyes too. If Achilles had been like this that blessed night...he has no idea how Patroclus had kept himself together. 

He remembers Patroclus coming to him by the river, sliding in close after a bath. Offering nothing more than a wooden comb and a smile.

“May I kiss you?” Achilles asks, overcome with the memory. He says it before he’s even sure the words are coming from his own mouth. 

Thanatos turns his head like he’s trying his best to reach over his shoulder. He’s no longer trying to play stoic. Achilles is certain he can’t remember how. His severe face is guileless and sweet right now, his hawk eyes completely unfocused. To see a god disarmed from just a bit of stroking...it’s more intoxicating than any Dionysian wine.

“May I please?” Achilles asks again. 

He waits until Thanatos nods before he pushes the god’s hair back again. The angle is all wrong to capture Thanatos’s mouth, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not the lips he seeks but the sensitive side of the neck. Achilles places an open-mouthed kiss right over the ridge where the muscle sends shivers into the shoulders. 

Thanatos makes a helpless noise, like his breath and his lips are all tangled into one.

“That’s it,” Achilles whispers again. “Just feel this.”

_ He _ can feel Thanatos shaking at his words. Achilles chases them with his tongue, drawing hot lines all over the god’s throat. Thanatos is leaning his whole body so far to the right he has to throw an arm out to brace himself. Achilles wraps his arms around to help him, one low on the god’s waist, the other high up on his chest. 

The first time Patroclus had touched him like this, his knees had given out.

Thanatos twists in Achilles’s arms, scrabbling desperately to face him. His knees prove to get in the way.

“Would you like to lay down?” Achilles asks him.

“Please,” Thanatos begs. 

His eyes are so very, very bright. 

“You know the measure of this, then,” Achilles notes. 

Good. Achilles stands long enough to let the god lay back and draw his feet up. He’s so tall that he stretches nearly the full length of the couch, same as Achilles. They are not so different in size when Thanatos is not hovering three feet off the ground.

Thanatos is broader in the shoulders though, Achilles is pained to say, and the rest of his chest is similarly wide. There’s barely any room for Achilles to sit at the edge of the couch, but he manages.

In the dim, orange light from the braziers, Thanatos’s ashen skin glows like trapped embers.

Achilles spreads a hand out over the covered side of Thanatos’s breast, feeling his pec tense beneath the expensive chiton. Thanatos gasps and spreads his legs wider just from that very simplest of touches. 

“Do you want me to kiss you again?” Achilles asks, not because he isn’t certain but because he wants to hear Thanatos say it. Gods. The sight is so poignant, so unerringly beautiful, he has a hard time not shoving his hand between his own legs.

Achilles wears Patroclus's loss as an ever present wound, but he cannot deny Thanatos is beautiful. 

Thanatos’s hands squeeze into fists at his sides, but he makes no sign to either withdraw or move forward.

“Is this okay?” Achilles asks him, already starting to pull his hand away. Thanatos jerks and catches at his wrist. 

“Yes,” the god says in a single rush of breath. “Yes, it’s fine. Sorry.”

His face is bronze with shame. 

“As I said. Words can be difficult. I am aware it is...off-putting.”

Thanatos relinquishes his hold reluctantly. His palm is so callused that its rough edges scrape.

Achilles considers what it would be like at his own station, were his only company himself in the mirror. If he did not have Zagreus to brighten his many years. 

He takes Thanatos’s hand in his own and squeezes.

“Nod for me, then,” Achilles tells him. “Or shake your head and I will stop. Is that acceptable?”

Thanatos’s lips part like Achilles is the wonder. 

“Yes,” he says, followed by a short nod. As though he cannot believe this favor is so easy. 

Achilles rubs over Thanatos’s scarred knuckles with his thumb, trying to soothe him. He knows what it is like to be awed by understanding. His own first time, he had been unable to let go of the sight of his spear. Pat had laid it beside them on a chest so he could feel safe. 

It has been so long since he ached in this sweet way.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Achilles tells him. Thanatos nods frantically. He spreads his arms like he’s not sure where they go, only that he wants Achilles everywhere.

It’s easier now if Achilles scoots closer, so that’s what he does, twisting so he can bend down and finally cup the god’s face. Thanatos’s skin is so fine where his neck meets his chin, silky-smooth and scarless everywhere there should be armor. His hands may be rough but these secret places are sensitive and beautiful. The slight hollow behind his ear is a revelation. Achilles sets the pad of his thumb there and Thanatos’s eyelashes flutter. 

Achilles presses his lips to the ear on the opposite side and Thanatos  _ keens _ . 

“Too much?”

He nearly gets a fat lip when Thanatos shakes his head. 

“Keep going then?”   
  


A vehement nod. In the corner of his vision, he can see the god blushing all the way to his chest.

Gods, he wants to take him  _ apart _ . 

Achilles sets on the curve of that ear again, mouthing it with every ounce of care Patroclus once showed to him. Drawing his tongue along the edge makes Thanatos squirm; taking the lobe between his teeth makes the god gasp. 

“It feels good like this, doesn’t it?” he whispers behind Thanatos’s ear. “Feeling them close? Feeling their breath?”

Thanatos cries out, less a confirmation and more just raw sound. 

“Everything is so much more intense,” Achilles agrees. Patroclus’s beard on his neck. Every single breath like a hurricane. “You should do this to him. He’ll love it.”

Achilles blows a puff of hot air against the crest of Thanatos’s ear. One powerful arm comes up to seize at Achilles's back, clawing like Thanatos needs him closer still. 

“Shh,” Achilles whispers as a hard tug threatens to rip his robe off at the shoulder. “Let me take care of you.”

Achilles had laughed at those words the first time Pat had said them, but he hadn’t laughed a second later when his beloved had taken him in hand. Thanatos isn’t laughing either. He doesn’t seem to know which direction to rock his body, only that he needs to  _ move _ .

Achilles takes pity on him. 

“Give me a moment.”

He rises up and gets one knee on the couch so he can swing the other over Thanatos’s hips. Achilles straddles the tall god and cages him in, bracing his forearms on either side of the god’s head. Thanatos cries out and grabs at him, desperate to pull him flush.

“Gently now,” Achilles tells him. 

When their bodies finally press together, he can feel Thanatos’s moans vibrate through his chest.

“Beautiful,” Achilles says, nibbling down the curve of Thanatos’s neck. All the way up to the join of his jaw. The insides of his own thighs ache with how the god feels. He can’t remember the last time he was this hard.

Thanatos’s hips rock like he’s not even sure that is the motion, like he’s stiff. Maybe he is. Achilles has only ever seen Thanatos float straight up and down; maybe even a god’s great muscles weaken if they do not use the complete range of motion. The hard lump beneath Thanatos’s leggings is undeniable though. Achilles adjusts to press his own need against it, and for a moment all he can see is stars.

Thanatos jerks his hips more frantically now, starting to catch the rhythm of rubbing against someone. 

“Yes, that’s it,” Achilles mouths against the god’s neck. “You like that? How that feels?”

Thanatos nods once, twice. Achilles lifts his own hips a little to allow Thanatos room to experiment. It is apparently the wrong direction. Thanatos groans and clutches at him, physically forcing Achilles to pin him.

A mortal soul can only take so much.

Achilles growls and uses his leverage to grind his pelvis hard against Thanatos, the right way. His cock compresses against the bulge in Thanatos’s leggings and they both gasp.

“Like  _ this _ ,” he rasps, jacking his hips again. 

Thanatos shivers with his entire body, bucking up to meet Achilles the best he can. His broad hands ram beneath the loose edges of Achilles’s chiton and down Achilles's back like he still can’t get them close enough.

_ Good _ , Achilles tells him with every matching roll of his hips.  _ Yes, like that. _

Thanatos’s hair is a wavy mess around his neck and shoulders, catching against his own skin as he writhes. Achilles sucks a desperate kiss against his jaw. All they’re doing is rubbing together and yet even he is melting to the core. The backs of his arms are prickled with gooseflesh.

Thanatos makes the tiniest noise, like a plea, like a prayer. Achilles catches the sound on his lips and swallows it with his own mouth, teaching Thanatos how to kiss.

He can feel the god’s chest heave as his voice spills from him. Achilles tastes his moan and feeds it back to him, lip to lip, breath to breath, the way Pat had first taught him.

Thanatos squeezes his back so hard it nearly hurts. He’s getting close, Achilles can tell, from the way he’s going stiff - else his hips are tiring out. Gods, but Achilles wants to bring him. 

He wants to make Thanatos lose his ever-loving mind.

“Let me show you,” Achilles says. It comes out more like a plea. “Thanatos. Please.”

He has to brace himself against the couch as hard as possible to push back against the god’s embrace. Thanatos doesn’t seem to want to let him up, even though he’s panting like he cannot catch his breath. Achilles manages to lift himself just enough to get a hand between them. They aren’t even undressed and yet the god’s body is a furnace. When he gets two fingers beneath Thanatos’s leggings, the slick head is right  _ there _ .

Thanatos slaps at his back, thrusting his hips up in the same reflexive motion. He’s nodding before Achilles can even ask. Achilles rubs his palm over the full length of the god’s cock and Thanatos sobs so loud it echoes.

Achilles  _ burns _ .

Somehow, he manages to tug the front of Thanatos’s leggings down. The god isn’t even wearing an undergarment, just that tight, tight linen. Achilles yanks open his own garments so hard he’s surprised they do not tear. It’s been so, so long since he even touched himself. His entire belly aches with it.

They brush together again, this time, skin on skin. Thanatos arches so violently it feels he might throw Achilles. The expression on his face...gods. It’s like he’s caught in the sweetest form of torture.

Maybe it has been even longer for him. 

“Does it hurt?” he asks. Thanatos gives a shaky nod. Achilles spreads his hand low on the god’s belly, right where it hurts if the balls are backed up. Thanatos makes an incomprehensible noise and claws at the chiton still tied on Achilles’s shoulder. He pulls it halfway down Achilles’s arm.

Achilles kisses the sweat from Thanatos’s neck.

“It’s okay,” he tells Thanatos. “I have you.”

Achilles cups his hand beneath Thanatos’s cock and bears down with his hips so he can squeeze both of them together.

It doesn’t take much time at all - a few desperate kisses, several punishing thrusts. That pleasure-pain of being trapped between Pat’s hand and Pat’s dick had always done it for Achilles, and the same seems to set Thanatos’s belly on fire. The god trembles beneath him, calls for him, screams. Achilles can’t even get his fingers to wrap all the way around them properly but it doesn’t seem to matter. Thanatos ruts up against him like his own immortal life depends on it. Achilles has never felt another man so hard. It makes his own thighs ache down to his knees.

“You can do it,” he rasps. Bites another kiss into the side of Thanatos’s neck. There’s going to be a bruise there in the shape of his mouth. “ _ Come for me _ .”

Thanatos hitches a breath in and then his whole body is holding it. He slams his feet flat on the couch and drives his hips up, up, up, and suddenly everything uncoils at once. His eyebrows slide up and his lips go slack, and he is coming all over Achilles’s hand, his own belly, his beautiful linens. There is so  _ much _ of it. Like he’s waited his entire life.

It’s that thought that brings him, that thought and the image of Patroclus, smiling down at him. That first time, that best time, when he looked at Pat and knew: he was born for more than just bloodshed. 

“Oh gods!”

It is Achilles's turn to gasp. Everything in him draws tight, tighter, tightest and then suddenly, that knot releases. The ecstasy hits him like a lightning bolt and he is coming so hard he shakes with it.

It takes a long time to run down that high, caught in that space between sated and wrung out. Thanatos is barely awake by the time Achilles comes back to himself enough to think about moving. When he tries, the god makes a mournful sound and hugs him fast against his chest. 

Achilles gives him a gentle kiss.

“Are you okay?” Achilles asks. 

Thanatos nods very slightly. His eyes are the slightest golden silvers. 

“...thank you,” he whispers. 

Achilles tugs at his trapped, messy hand. It takes a moment of squirming to work the edge of his chiton to the right place so he can mop up the stickiness. Thanatos grumbles, but on the second attempt he does let Achilles roll to the left so he can keep wiping them both clean. His limbs all weigh at least a thousand pounds, but he has strength enough to get the worst of it and tuck the god back into his leggings. As Pat had once done for him, a long, long time ago.

Achilles kisses Thanatos’s cheek.

“Stay,” Achilles asks him. “Rest. I will be here.”

Like Pat had done for him. Like he hopes Thanatos will do for Zagreus. 

Hope is a fragile thing, imperiled in a million ways, but no less precious, all the same. 

“The dying will not wait forever,” Thanatos mumbles. His arms are tucking up though and his breathing is evening out. It’s soothing just to be near him. 

“And as the dead, they’ll have all the time in the world,” Achilles says. “It’s okay. This is part of it.”

He curls his arm over Thanatos’s side, tugging him closer, matching his breath. He knows Thanatos will be gone when he wakes up, sure as he knows this may never happen again. It is enough to think that right now they are warm and safe. That after everything he took from Pat, he is finally wise enough to give back. 

He tucks a stray lick of gossamer hair back behind Thanatos’s ear.

“Did you get your answer, then?” Achilles can’t quite resist asking.

Thanatos nods with the faintest of smiles.

“Yes.” 

“Good. I’m glad.”

They curl up on their sides facing each other, heart to heart, breath to breath. Achilles keeps stroking Thanatos’s hair, lazy and long. Thanatos sighs like a summer night’s breeze.

He’s almost asleep when he feels the god shift. 

“He’ll do it, you know,” Thanatos whispers.

“What?”

“Zagreus. What he promises, he’ll do.”

Whatever he’s promised, no matter how outlandish. Escape from Tartarus. Defeat his own father. Find his beloved mother.

Find Patroclus. 

“I know,” Achilles whispers back. “Sometimes, I think he’s the most fearsome god of you all.”

“Mm.”

Soft lips brush against his forehead, clumsy, yet affectionate. Calm washes over him like a libation. 

“Maybe sometimes the both of us should have more faith in  _ him _ .”

Achilles hums in gentle agreement. The chamber falls silent. 

He dreams of sweet grasses, and the starlight, and Patroclus. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Twitter at [@guhdong](https://www.twitter.com/guhdong)!


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